Well… I wasn’t interested in these particular items… but it did get me thinking about what else is available in the world of entomophagy. It must be marginally popular if it’s turning up in Amazon suggestion lists. Turns out that there is quite a bit available, and much of it looks practical, inexpensive, and… of course… good for you. Apparently eating bugs (and crickets in particular) is one of the easiest ways to ingest solid protein.

Banana peanut bug bites for the Rhodesian Ridgeback?

Like every new food, however, it must first pass the “Hogan survived eating it” test. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are the perfect food tasters; when they lost their job chasing lions, they were used as poison detectors for South African kings. Like most dogs, Ridgebacks will readily eat anything, but our Ridgeback carries the canine curse of a weak stomach, so he’s an excellent gauge of a food’s toxicity. Hogan’s now awaiting a package of Banana Peanut Bug Bites.

If Hogan survives, I think I’ll spring for some cricket flour. It can be baked into banana or other quick breads. There are a ton of recipes for this stuff. Here’s the banana bread recipe from Entomo Farms:

Less than a year ago Jackson discovered Walking with Monsters and Walking with Dinosaurs, two Kenneth Branagh-voiced cgi series chronicling the rise and fall of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures. Score! We witnessed the rise and fall of the croc-like postosuchus, the four flippered liopleurodon, and the comet-chased Tyrannosaurus Rex. Sure, they’re a little bloody for little kids and as interesting as they are, these shows did become a bit stale after the 429th viewing, but now that we have entered the post-Branagh-monster world of child-chosen YouTube programming, I know that I have enjoyed and lost the golden age of shared parent/child programming. TV Rome is burning and I can’t seem to stop it. Give me back the dinosaurs and giant scorpions, for what has replaced them is far more frightening (and nearly unwatchable!) for anyone over the age of 12.

The new age is dominated by YouTube stars CookieSwirlC, and stampylonghead (or just Stampy). I do not understand the allure of these brilliant bastards, but I caution anyone brazen enough to come between a 4-12 year old child and these fingernail down chalkboard voiced super stars. Their hypnotically crappy shows are kid nip and YouTube’s nefarious autoplay feature ensures that one will auto blend into another if you’re not ready to intervene and chop off the stream when one ends.

Need to get an annoying song out of your head. These will take care of that for you… but at what price? Need to lay siege to some upstart militia or new age Davidian Compound? Don’t blast them with rock music; blast them with CookieSwirlC. Surrender is assured… well… unless they’re between the ages of 4 and 12.

But perhaps hope lies in the lessons learned from walking with both the monsters and the dinosaurs. Our furry mammal ancestors were once the prohibitive underdogs; they had no chance battling the terrible lizards head on. Instead they needed wile and guile, a network of tunnels… and a giant comet to smash into the Gulf of Mexico. Short a comet, though, if only we could get CookieSwirl to battle Stampy… like Mega Godzilla taking on Rubberized Godzilla.

Wow… what’s in this toy egg? Is this a taunting Minecraft note from Stampy? Who took your wolf pets? Some lady with a high-pitched voice just ran by the squid. Make it happen. When one titan destroys the other, we can team up on the weakened victor, destroy it on the beach like a washed up monster liopleurodon.

We haven’t had the easiest time getting the kids out in the snow. Jackson got snow in his mitten, or down his snow suit, or down his tighty-whiteies when he was tiny, so it was touch and go trying to get the kids to leave the house in the winter, to revel in the arctic variety of crap weather New England showers upon us.

But this year we turned the corner… this year we have had a couple wildly successful Gatchell Park sledding trips. So what shows up on the family agenda? Skiing. Apparently it’s now crucial to teach the kids how to ski. What!? Why!? Because their friends might learn how to ski and they’ll feel left out if they don’t ski.

Don’t get me wrong. Skiing is tons of fun. It really is. But it’s almost never worth the trouble or expense, and it’s really only fun after you’ve learned how to not die at it. The dirty secret about skiing is that sledding is more fun. People don’t like to talk about such things, but injected with truth serum, people will invariably admit that sledding is more fun than skiing, boogie boarding is more fun than surfing, and tubing is more fun than kayaking… especially if you’re going down the Saco river with a case of beer. Skiing is really only advisable if you’re Scandinavian AND you think you might have to fight the Russians on mountains. Otherwise… skiing is a mistake. It, like golf, should not be started, and if started on accident, it should be quickly quit.

Skiing was always expensive, but now it’s hellaholy%$#! expensive. Good luck finding a daily lift ticket for less than $50, and places like Vail are now charging something like $160 a day… for one person… not including a bloody mary. Then there’s the traipsing… lets not forget the traipsing if you have little kids. Unless you are a New Hampshire live free or dier or a Vermont granolaista, you’re looking at minimum an hour’s drive to get to anywhere decent… and probably much longer.

Your nightmare begins early as you pack a lunch and the little monsters into the minivan, forget something expensive that you’ll need to replace in the ski shop at the mountain, navigate the rental lines (not sure if they like this yet!), give a kidney for lift tickets, talk child one back into skiing as they try to not try skiing at the last minute, get their snow pants and boots on, take the snow pants and boots off one because he needs to use the bathroom even though you asked if he needed the bathroom before you put the boots and snow pants on, get their snow pants and boots back on, carry their skis and poles up to the base of the bunny hill, clip in their boots, pick one up as they fall over, and… if you’re lucky… hand a couple hundred dollar bills to the ski instructor and run like effing hell until you’re out of earshot.

If you’re unlucky… or suffer masochistic tendencies… you’ll be the parent “teaching” your kids how to ski. Good luck with that. You’re probably better off cracking a wine glass across the counter and jamming the jagged stem into your eye. Chances are overwhelming your young kids will hate skiing and/or you after a couple hours, but it’s not like you can just whip out a plastic sled at that point. No… at that point you’re stuck on a mountain, with a stupid sticker on a wire on your zipper, .with a whining or full-on-crying kid, with a headache like a hangover you didn’t earn, and without the kidney you left in the ski shop.

Abby’s homework early in the year was dominated by mathematics, but lately Bell Elementary has been focusing increasingly on reading and writing. This offers us an opportunity to observe a concrete, practical application of the liberal arts side of public education, as Abby harnesses painstakingly-crafted, threatening notes taped to toys in a well-calculated attempt to exert her Sith-leaning will over Jackson. The dark side is indeed strong in Abby; it’s just too bad Jackson doesn’t read. Jackson simply removed this pesky note from Imperial star destroyer and retaped it as a warning on the paisley tuffet.

The literate side of the force may be powerful, but never… ever underestimate the unyielding, blissful ignorance of the illiterate side of the force.